Road Ahead for the Magic
From tonight on Magic has 38 games left out of which 15 games are winnable (3 each against BOS and ATL). All they need to do is to win 7 more, and at 40-42 they will make it to the playoffs. It is not beyond the realm of reality to win some games against quality teams at home when the team gets all injured players back. The pros of such success would be the inertia entering the next season and increasing the possibilities of recruiting free agents. The cons would be that the inadequacies of the front office and the coach would be masked from exposure. Regardless, in my view, the pros outweigh the cons, especially in terms of increasing the odds of the franchise remaining in town.
posted by Matt @ 3:11 PM
6 Comments:
At 3:39 PM,
Mike from Illinois said…
Matt, could you or WeRDevos do the postings on game days reviewing and previewing the games until I'm able to create a post again... I've been having problems with the system since last night... it keeps deleting my posts for whatever reason. Thanks.
Coach Hill's substitution patterns have been really awful during this losing streak. Why hasn't he played Diener the last 2 games and why did Mario Kasun play only 1 minute last night? The Magic sure could have used him on the defensive boards, as the Hawks grabbed 20 offensive rebounds.
The Magic need to shoot FTs better (only 18 of 31 last night), play defense better and the bench needs to play better (only 6 pts last night). Dooling and Garrity have done virtually nothing the last few games. Of course, if Coach had a clue about using the bench better, that would help.
At 4:42 PM,
Matt said…
I have moved this posting from a heading for the game in Atlanta:
"By the end of first half it was pretty clear why ATL remained so close; 1) Missed free throws and 2) Atlanta's offensive rebounds. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out. In that half we had cameo appearances by Kasun and Dienr. None of the two appeared in the second half. The commentators mentioned that BS (I guess that would be the title) Hill was angry with Kasun because he unnecessarily put Pachulia on his back!!! Are we operating for the overall team's success or at petty grudge of "do it my way or you are not gonna be played". Preventing offensive rebounds are all about boxing the opponents out, and Kasun would have been good for that. The game would not have been even close if we had prevented offensive rebounds, let alone coming down to one spectacular (yet lucky) shot by Joe Johnson. What do you have to say BS Hill?"
I must add that bad FT shooting is a mental lapse that happens to all teams, and it becomes contagious. Nobody has any control when that happens, but the defensive rebounding deficiency was obvious and could have been corrected.
At 12:10 AM,
Ken said…
I didn't get to see much of the Atl game but I could tell the 20 offensive rebounds were one of the problems. I also didn't get to hear the comment about Kasun putting Pachulia on his back. I'm not advocating violence here, but geeez, it seems like BSHill would encourage a little bit of toughness in his team. What does he want, a team full of marshmallows? How many times have we seen their weak-ass fouls, only to watch the opposing player continue to score? hence all the 3 point plays. BSHill's lack of a spine is really getting annoying.
Another thing that concerns me is DHowards development. Not his points or rebounds, but just how he seems to get pushed around so much in the low post and inability to box-out effectively. While Rivers was coach he employed Clifford Ray as sort of a personal mentor/advisor/trainer for Dwight to advance his development. I thought this was a great idea. But, in comes the BSHill regime and Ray is released. Even Dwight's family felt Ray was a good mentor for their son and pleaded with Hill to retain Ray, but noooooooo, BSHill is gonna do it his way, with his ineffective staff which has proved in the past to be, at the very least, suspect.
At 12:54 AM,
Mike from Illinois said…
Omar, excellent point about Clifford Ray. He had done such a good job with Howard his rookie season, you think the Magic would have had enough sense to retain him. But in comes a new regime, and they want all their guys in and all the old coaches out. At least Dwight is mature enough not to pout about it and continues his impressive development. But yeah, Omar, you bring up good points about Howard being ineffective at times defensively on the low post, allowing the opponent to get too many offensive rebounds.
At 10:41 AM,
Matt said…
Good observation on Dwight Howard's tendencies to slack off on the defensive end, at times. I support the points on Clifford Ray's retention, although I cannot discount the work of Mark Bryant with Dwight. Bryant was an undersized but smart center who made a living on his movements and footwork on the offensive end. I, however, don't recall how good he was on the defensive end.
At 1:12 AM,
OVERWADED said…
Mario Kasun sucks.
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